I am one of those uber-beta folks who was never interested in sports. Classical bookworm / videogame nerd. And I didn't even understand why others are interested. What is the point of kicking (or throwing) a ball? What is it good for?
One of the TRP blogs said "men are hardwired to like competition, and try to achieve dominance and social status".
This ringed a bell. Sports are often nothing but pure, crystallized competition for the sake of competition and not much else, made for men who like competion, which masculine men naturally do.
Literally. It is a shocking idea for me. I kind of assumed hundreds of millions of men worldwide a glued before TV screen watching various kinds of football basically do it because it is spectacular. Nope. It is not actually as spectacular as acrobatic artists for example doing saltos in the circus. Neither because it is a tough guy stuff - soccer players are fit, but 90 min running around is not that hard. Goalies don't even do that tough stuff and not even need to be very, very fit, yet e.g. Kahn had a cult following. Why?
The answer is that it is about two teams of guy trying hard to prove that they are better at doing something in and of itself useless. It's the pure competition, the conflict that makes it interesting. That it is a battle of will and skill. It's that they are trying to do something to each other that the other team does not want to. It's almost sexual - getting a round dick into heavily defended square vagina against the will of the defenders.
You could say that this is what defines the term sport. Anything becomes a sport when done competitively.
LESSON
Learn to like to watch some kind of a football or something, it helps you becoming the kind of man women dig. If you regularly compete at sports or work then no need to. But if you have totally no competition in your life, made yourself a comfy special expert job without any competition because few people know that stuff, workout is running only against your own records etc. etc. so you get no competition in your life, then 90 minutes of watching two teams of guys compete hard kind of trains your mind in the right direction. Gets the adrenaline running, whatever.
WorkThrow99 12y ago
What does it mean about me then if I don't like spectator sports because I don't like being a spectator? I'd rather play anything that watch other play, then fantasize I'm those I'm watching. If I'm going to fantasize, it's about me beating them.
_Molon_Labe_ 12y ago
It means you are having the correct thoughts. The only sports I like to watch involve my Alma Mater. Other than that I could care less, and I'm certainly not going to riot if we win or lose a championship.
Losers revel in the successes of other men; winners go and create their own success. I agree completely with you.
[deleted] 12y ago
There is a complicated problem here I am not 100% sure how to express. Basically, although alpha means leader, I think that throughout history, real men always recognized and respected, even admired if others were much better than them. Somehow it is part of it.
I am not sure why or how, this needs a deeper RP theorist than me. But if you read old novels, 100 years old or something, then it was always like this: if a real gentleman enjoy rock climbing and at a party gets introduced to a world record holder climber, he will show honest, enthusiastic admiration. I don't know why. Maybe because it is still less bad than showing envy & jealousy? Because openly acknowledging a relative weakness when it seriously cannot be denied is actually a strength? I dunno.
But at any rate, if you enjoy kicking a ball around, knowing that you are not going to do it anywhere nearly as good as a Messi and paying a certain admiration to those who can, of course not overdoing it to a fanboy level, I guess it comes accross as cool?
WorkThrow99 12y ago
Well, yeah, you can respect someone who's better than you AND want to beat them. If you are secure in your person, you realize that "greatness" isn't a zero sum game, and if someone is good at something, it doesn't take anything from you. There's always someone who's going to be better than you at any given thing. You can't beat everyone at everything. The trick is to beat enough people at enough things. ;-)
Try and see it this way. You don't have to be #1, you have to be in the top 10% of the population, because, at any given time, in a given sample, you'll always be either number one, or number two, and there's usually enough "resources" for the top people.
mach11 12y ago
If you're trying to achieve social dominance and status the way to go probably isn't putting on the jersey of some other man who already has those things.
[deleted] 12y ago
That is true, there is such a thing as a having a strong interest, and then there is such a thing as a "fanboyish" attitude which is not cool.
[deleted] 12y ago
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Ill_mumble_that 12y ago
Have you ever seen an attractive alpha male approach a group of women? The women will compete with each other to see who can get his attention and single him out.
Women like competing just as much as men, but their's isn't for dominance. Women compete for desirability. This is why men's sports and women's sports should remain separated, despite feminists attempts to make everything co-ed.
The great thing about team sports vs. solo sports is that you see groups of men & women working together for similar purposes as one unit. It's the equivalent of taking a wingman with you to a bar, or a couple girls willing to have a threesome with a guy they just met.
Honestly I'm not sure which is more entertaining, watching in-field videos of men and women meeting for hookups, or watching sports. The interesting thing about sports is it provides you with instant comradery to anyone else that watches it, even if they like the opposing team, you have something both of you can talk about.
Guerillawar 12y ago
"It's almost sexual - getting a round dick into heavily defended square vagina against the will of the defenders."
HAHA
rebuildingMyself 12y ago
It's also a great way to bond with other guys in the office, at the bar, etc and make some good friends. Something that every man could use more of is more guy friends.
I could also give a rat's ass about most sports, especially shelling out good money to watch one live. But when I am forced to on such occasions (superbowl in the states, for example) I can really feel an adrenaline rush when I pick a side.
[deleted] 12y ago
That's all true. I prefer fighting sports though.
By the way, boxing, man, what a beautiful sport. I can't wait for my first training, I think it should be recommended here at least as much, if not more, than weight lifting.
gentlemanofleisure 12y ago
i like fighting too. i've trained boxing, judo, wrestling and now bjj. when guys talk about building confidence, fighting is a great way to do it.
PancakeFlag 12y ago
I see what you're getting at but I still don't ever seek out sports on tv, as I rarely watch it anyway. I have sometimes watched my alma mater's basketball team.
That said, I find great pleasure in watching sports with friends, preferably football, and drinking some beers or just talking. For me watching sports with other males is a bonding experience and a place where you're in the company of people who actually understand your mind, not just men in general but your actual friends.
I think sports are really great for kids because they are fun and teach useful skills and all that. Had a great time playing soccer and baseball as a kid. Later played lacrosse in high school. I have some reservations about contact sports for kids and teenagers though. I Fucked up my knee not too badly, but permanently, and kind of wish I hadn't played that last year because of it.
[deleted] 12y ago
My dad has a pretty fucked up knee although not for hitting it against something / someone but for overuse, wear and tear (was a competitive cyclist), basically the joint fluid was missing, tried everything, even laser surgery, finally ended up with some kind of an injection every 2-3 years that either fills the fluid up or makes the body produce it or something. If you want to I can ask him what it was, may worth taking a look.
musicvita25 12y ago
Rule number one though, do not Support Arsenal or Spurs. x
[deleted] 12y ago
The most surprising thing about the "I don't see what's so interesting about grown men running around after a ball" attitude is the lack of curiosity it shows, especially since the men we're talking about are usually cerebral betas who wouldn't approach any other field of human activity in such a crude, willfully ignorant way - I don't see what's so interesting about jazz, it's just a bunch of guys randomly blowing into trumpets. Intellectuals normally have a lot of respect for model-building and experimental design, where you try to get a better understanding of a complex issue by reducing it down to something like a game. They should be very interested in team sports if only because it's a bunch of experiments in how to get people to work together to be productive and successful - what's the balance between prima donnas and team players, should a coach impose a system or allow individual talent to run free, how do you incentivize individual players to do the right thing for the team, how do you deal with talented people who are assholes, etc, etc.
I think there's quite a bit of beta game going on here, where such men are positioning themselves as being more thoughtful and female-identifying than the kinds of unreflective male fans you can hear shouting and groaning in sports bars on any given weekend.
But it turns out that the guys shouting and groaning in the sports bar are more successful on average with women than the sports-atheist or sports-agnostic betas. Along with some of the other commenters here, I don't think it's because watching sports makes you more competitive or masculine, it's because being part of a male community is important for personal development and access to social opportunities. Male sports fans are more likely to have had male influence when they were children, for example a father or uncle who brought them to games. And male sports fans find it easier to make male friends.
[deleted] 12y ago
Yes and also also a defense mechanism "I would suck at it, hence, talk it down". Bit of a sour grape effect.
It is not necessarily beta game though. Maybe partially yes, but also intellectual-alpha in a "I am smarter than those sports fans, I will earn more money" attempts at social dominance.
Not that it works... too remote to work. "I will earn well in 5 years" is shitty game - the reaction is "well, we will see". I have found the "display smartness as earning capability" game can only work when you actually, already earn with it - and even in this case it is complicated. Suppose at a party two guys start the usual who is the bigger sports fan game. They ask a third dude if he saw the last match or something. The girls pretend to not pay attention but they do, they want to see the men sort out their hierarchy. So it is competition for female attention. So at that point it will be hard for the third dude to turn it around and go "no, I have no idea, I think sports suck, but I am a very well paid engineer" kind of stuff. Maybe he can escape the situation with a joke, wait until the other two are done and then set his own trap, like "where were you folks doing holiday last time, mine in E$$pensive Island was great".
WorkThrow99 12y ago
Trumpet playing can be modelized and automated. Sports are a bunch of people acting in non-rational ways. One can be understood, mimicked, controlled and reproduced. The other, not so much. The goal of sports is defined solely on it's actors, otherwise, "put that ball in that net" could be automated in a way which wouldn't be much of a game. (Kill everything, shoot in a straight line.)
Citation or study needed. I'd postulate that it seems that way, first, because it's what Hollywood pushes as an image, and secondly, because people who are often in sports bar are more often out. I want to see a comparative study done between people who are into sports who are X% of their time socializing, versus people who aren't and are ALSO x% of their time socializing.
You are simply catering to the audience with a stereotype without any evidence at all.
[deleted] 12y ago
My impression from Hollywood was that sports fans were either frat boys or fat boys, and I thought I was going against that stereotype by suggesting that being a sports fan is actually quite a positive and healthy thing for a man.
Actually, I don't think I'm saying anything that's too different from you. I agree that being a sports fan isn't the point, it's to do with sports being a catalyst for communities and socializing. I think it might be more complex than percentage of time spent socializing, that it's to do with the quality of friendships. For example, a man who has a poker night or a football night with his male friends is less likely to have to lean on his girlfriend for all his emotional and social needs, and that makes a difference to the relationship.
2StandardDeviations 12y ago
Playing sports is manly, watching them, not so much. Remember, an athletic supporter is nothing but another man's jocks strap.